


asymmetric styling

by kareofbears



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Third Semester (Persona 5)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:33:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26626000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kareofbears/pseuds/kareofbears
Summary: "I like the way you dress."Akechi looks up from his crossword (one word left, ten letters horizontally) to see Ann waiting for a response."What?"
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Takamaki Ann
Comments: 24
Kudos: 92





	asymmetric styling

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to my [beta, mildkat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildkat) for reading this, despite never playing persona 5

"I like the way you dress."

Akechi looks up from his crossword (one word left, ten letters horizontally) to see Ann waiting for a response.

"What?"

"Your outfits are nice," she clarifies, nodding at his winter attire. "I like how you present yourself, and the colors you pick. You have a knack for clothes, I think."

“Okay,” he says for lack of a better response. “Why are you telling me that?” 

“Because I want to?” 

He sets down his crossword. “Why would you want to?” 

Ann stares at him. “Because you have good outfits?”

“Yes, we’ve been over that, but you _hate_ me, so why would you want to compliment me?” If this useless back and forth goes on any further, Akechi’s going to pop a vein. 

“I can still hate people and compliment them,” she replies, rolling her eyes. “That’s called high school.” 

“This,” he gesticulates at the empty interior of Leblanc. “Is us waiting for the rest of the halfwits and Sumire to show up, and that I’ve apparently been granted the unfortunate lottery ticket of spending alone time with you.” 

“I think it’s called a _blessing,_ actually,” she grins. “I’m something of a hoot. A rockstar. A Hollywood badass.” 

“A nuisance?” he offers, smiling thinly in return. 

“Are you always like this or is it because I’m just too pretty?” 

“I feel like this is a trick question from how stupid it sounds, but it’s most definitely not the second one, I promise.” Akechi shrugs off his jacket, and moves to grab his crossword puzzle again. “How about you go back to your phone, and we can go back to the delightful silence we had before?” 

Her hand slams down on the newspaper. “I knew it.”

Raising an eyebrow, “Are you about to tell me the final answer to this crossword? Because not only do I legally have to say that you seem like you’ve never attempted a mental aptitude test in your life, but because I’m generally against spoilers.” 

“You _do_ like fashion!”

Akechi represses a sigh. “What are you on about?” 

“Your jacket,” she points at his brown peacoat. “That was on page thirteen of _Vague,_ the July edition predicting sales on which winter apparel for men will take off later that year. That peacoat was rated number one in Japan and ended up being something like a self-fulfilling prophecy by using their earlier predictions and turned it into sales.” 

He scoffs. “Okay, sure. Let’s say that I’m an avid follower of fashion.” Akechi leans forward, and his head tilts in mock-concern. “But doesn’t that mean that you rebuked your own statement? Since this was...what was that? ‘Rated number one in Japan?’ Won’t that mean that everyone would be trying to sell this coat? And it could be a complete coincidence that I have this jacket because it can be replicated in every fast-fashion store in downtown Shibuya?” He gasps. “Oh no, looks like you’re wrong about the very field you think you know the most in! How humiliating.” 

Ann leans forward, her smile is wide but her eyes are sharp. “Silly me. I guess I forgot to mention a fact about this specific brand, color, and _fabric_ on the very first day of release: it’s near impossible for manufacturers to try and replicate it.” She tilts her head to mimic him. “Humiliation’s a bitch, isn’t it?” 

“Maybe, if I had ever experienced it the way you just did,” he replies pleasantly. “‘Near impossible,’ means statistically difficult, but not _quite_ impossible.”

“Very true, but since that brand is on such high demand, they actually have a foolproof method to fight against fake brands. Perhaps they thought it was a good idea to have a small symbol that can be easily overlooked. Let’s say—” she reaches forward and grabs his coat, grin stretching even further when she points at one of the big brown buttons. “Something like a rabbit engraved on top of the first button?” 

Akechi raps his fingers on the table. “Perhaps, but if you had done your research, this brand has _two_ foolproof methods: the rabbit, as you annoyingly mentioned, and the code that you can enter in the website to prove its legitimacy. However, as you may have noticed—” he pinches the label near the collar of the peacoat. “No code. Sorry.”

Ann groans, throwing her hands over her face. “Dammit!” 

Letting himself cheer internally, he makes sure the condescension is layered thick in his voice. “Not your fault. You tried your best.” 

“Yeah…I’m sure you did.” Blue eyes peek from between her fingers. “Too bad you forgot the cute little fact that four years ago they actually put the code _inside_ of the label.”

His shoulders tense. 

“Do you mind flipping it for me, Akechi? Actually, no need,” propping her chin on her palm, he probably could have felt her smugness from three blocks away. “Even if there isn’t, I know that you live and breathe fashion as much as I do.” Her expression turns cheery. “Well, _almost_ as much.” 

“Congratulations, you beat me in a game you know you’re more knowledgeable in than I am,” he deadpans. “An outstanding feat. Can you let me finish my puzzle now?”

“I should’ve guessed you were a sore loser,” Ann says, ignoring him. “I still remember when Akira beat you in a round of Tycoon. Your face was stuck like—” she scrunches her eyebrows together and morphs her features into a menacing scowl. “For like four hours afterwards, it was great.” 

“He only won because his cards were better than mine.”

“Actually, if I’m not mistaken, the cards you drew were basically as good as his, and you still lost.”

“Oh, I see, you’re trying to be _funny._ Hilarious. I can hardly breathe, please call an ambulance.” He rubs his temples. “I yield. I’m going to ask you this one last time: What do you _want?_ And no games, I beg of you, you’re going to make my head burst.”

“Killjoy,” she sighs, before straightening up. “You know that we hate you.”

“I think I’m aware, yes.”

“And you hate us—”

“But Sumire doesn’t count,” they both say in unison. 

“ _But_ you not only hate us, but I’m pretty sure you hate, like, everyone else,” she continues, gesticulating with her hands. “Japan, Asia, the world. I’m sure you have some random vendetta with some guy across the Pacific Ocean. He probably breathed too hard and made one of your hairs move two weeks later.”

“Is there a point to your prattling, or…?”

“I’m _getting_ there,” she gives him an accusing look. “So with all that in mind, why does a guy like you, who would get in a boxing ring with just about anyone on the planet, know so much about something like the fashion industry?” Smoothing down his jacket, “Why do you put so much effort in how you dress when it’s so clear that you don’t care what other people think about you?”

“Is that what you think?”

Ann pauses at his tone. “Am I wrong?” 

“No. Not necessarily.” She continues to stare at him, unblinking. “Do you ever learn to back down?”

That makes her grin. “Not in this line of work. If you think I’m bad, you should go a few rounds with Ryuji.” 

“Sounds like a nightmare.” If information is the price for temporary silence, then he’s willing to pay the price. Even at the cost of prolonging his crossword. “I didn’t care what other people thought about me, but I wanted them to _see_ me in a certain light.” 

She squints. “What?”

He finds himself fiddling with the edge of his newspaper. “The very first thing people notice about a person is how they present themself. In their hair, their expression, their posture. But above all that, is the clothes that they wear. The shoes on their feet, the jacket on their back, how expensive their watch is. All that information is melded together in an instant. That split second—” he snaps his fingers. “Is all they need to form an opinion of you. To define you, before you can even open your mouth.” 

“I don’t care about fashion,” Akechi admits. “But I cared about what it could do for me. I got to have a say in who I am.” His eyes flicker to her. “Done?” 

The look Ann gives him is unreadable. “You’re a liar.”

Akechi leans away, taken aback. “Well, yes, of course. I thought we all knew that by now.” 

“You _do_ care about what other people think about you, Akechi,” she accuses, realization dawning on her. “‘Want to see you in a certain light,’ my ass—all you’re doing is shuffling around what your words mean to justify your actions through your thick, annoyingly soft-haired skull. You’re right, you don’t care about fashion, because at the end of the day…” Ann shrugs helplessly, and her words are spoken with something like awe and dismay. “All you care about is how people see you.” 

A beat passes. “Want _ed_.”

“Huh?”

“It’s ‘wanted,’” he corrects, unfazed. “Past tense.” 

Ann gives him a hard look. “Correcting me on my grammar, now? Real mature.”

“Only because it changes the meaning of everything you just said.” Akechi reaches over to his jacket’s collar, and flips the label to reveal the code. “Thanks to your reminder, you helped me recall something.” He taps at the seemingly randomized set of numbers in front of him. “This lets you know when you bought the coat. What number is this?”

Reluctantly, she peers at what he’s pointing at. “‘10?’” she says quietly. “October?”

“I bought this about a week before my well-deserved beatdown in Shido’s ship,” he clarifies. “So about four months ago from today.”

“Okay? And?” she urges, still confused. 

“And this coat is the newest thing I own.” 

“Meaning…?”

“Meaning…” how strange it was, saying this out loud to another person. “That some time between Shido’s ship and now, I _stopped_ caring. About up-to-date fashion, about appearances, and especially stopped giving a damn about other people’s _perception_ of me.” 

Ann is silent for a moment. “Was it because of what happened in Shido’s ship?” she asks. There’s no trace of superiority or teasing in her tone—only curiosity. 

“Could be,” he answers honestly. “Perhaps I realized that there was no need to uphold a specific personality anymore. Perhaps I was just tired after playing that song and dance for as long as I can remember. Bottom line is: I don’t give a single shit about fashion anymore.” 

Her lips quirk up, “Even though you got into a fashion pissing contest not five minutes ago?” 

“That’s different. I love to win.” 

“I can tell,” she breathes out a laugh. After a moment, a thoughtful expression clouds her features. “Can I say something?”

“If I actually had a say in that, we wouldn’t have had this conversation at all.”

“How would you, Akechi Goro, feel about trying to get back into fashion?”

For once, Akechi looks surprised. “Did you not listen to anything I just said?”

Her hands drum on the table eagerly. “Just hear me out. You don’t care about fashion because it sort of, kind of, maybe represents how much you tried to be someone you’re not, which _hey, I get that,_ super relatable, and it’s great that you don’t care about that anymore. _But_ —and give me a chance here—” Ann grins. “Wouldn’t it be more interesting if you wore clothes that _you_ wanted to wear?”

She shifts in her seat, excitement radiating off of her. It’s difficult to watch. “I’ve been studying fashion ever since I could understand the color wheel, and if there’s one thing I learned is that fashion is _power._ If you make it your own, then,” Ann shrugs. “All the more power to you, right?” 

Akechi is struck with silence, and is saved from having to reply when the door to Leblanc swings wide open. An entourage of loud teenagers steamroll into the cafe, all brushing off various amounts of snow from themselves. 

“Took you long enough!” Ann yells over her shoulder. 

“Sorry for the delay,” Haru answers. She raises her hand to reveal a full plastic bag. “But we got snacks!” 

“Takoyaki?”

“Pork kebab.”

She makes a face. “Stop indulging Ryuji!”

“Mm, literally impossible,” Akira replies, combing the snow out of Futaba’s hair. 

Akechi sinks back into the booth, waiting for Sumire to walk in and prance by his side, when Ann turns back to him. “By the way, I think it’s ‘asymmetrical.’”

“What is?” 

“The last word on your puzzle,” she nods down at his crossword. “‘With two halves, sides, or parts that are not exactly the same in shape or size.’ I read it while I was grabbing your coat.”

“Oh.” He reluctantly scribbles down the answer, lacking the usual enjoyment he gets from finishing a crossword. “...Thanks.”

Somehow, she’s _still_ not done talking. “I heard Akira went shopping with Sumire last week. She came back with the cutest dress I’ve ever seen in my life.” 

“I’m aware.” He’s pretty sure he’s compiled enough for a slideshow of it by now, given how many pictures of it Sumire’s sent to him. 

She hesitates, before seeming to steel herself. “Wanna go shopping tomorrow?”

Akechi blinks. Twice. He’s about to open his mouth to say no as rudely as possible, when he lets his eyes wander the cramped coffee shop. All of them are in clothes that scream their personality, even if it clashes or has horrible style (he can barely look at Ryuji’s winter outfit without cringing). 

But, as terrible as some of them may look, all of them seem content to be in the clothes that they chose. 

“Maybe.”

Ann’s smile is bright and genuine. “I can work with a maybe.”

**Author's Note:**

> see, if you squint and tilt your head and concentrate _real_ hard, there's some akesumi and akiryu in here. anyway, this is such a niche fic that caters to, like, eight people, so if you made it to the end, I'm genuinely surprised! if you liked it, consider dropping a kudo or even a comment! they always make my day. 
> 
> be kind and be safe out there! <3
> 
> [my tumblr](https://kareofbears.tumblr.com/)


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